Before Twitter-"I wish I had known how to find people and build my PLN." Again, several folks said that to me. And people who have been on Twitter for a while still struggle with this. Finding good folks to follow can be a challenge. If you start out on your own, you really might not know a soul to follow. Thank goodness for sites like Twitter4Teachers. This is a great place where you can find other educators with similar interests to follow. When I was starting out, I stumbled upon this site. I was doing a Google search for "Twitter and Teachers" and thank goodness I found it. Otherwise I wouldn't know where to begin. But that is just one way. Twitter search is a great way to find people to follow. Plug in some key words and see who is tweeting. Another thing people may not understand is the idea of quality over quantity. You don't have to follow 1000 people to get a huge amount of meaning out of Twitter. Rather, choose people who provide value to you. Perhaps they tweet great resources. Or maybe they push your thinking. Remember, you can follow folks and they may or may not follow you back. That's ok. I see more and more that people are worried about followers. Oh I need only 2 more followers to get to 50. If Twitter is about seeing how many followers you can have, then maybe you are in it for the wrong reasons. Worry about the information you want to gain while here and forget about the other stuff.
Before Twitter-"I wish I had known about hashtags." This is the big one. More than 90% of the responses I got to my questions about what folks wish they had known said once they learned about hashtags, things changed for them. This is the sole reason I changed the way I do Twitter PD. I always start out with the idea of the hashtag. Using Twitter search can yield great results. But once folks learn about hashtags it completely changes how they use Twitter to find information. Hashtags can also help in finding good, high-quality people to follow. If you are talking to people about Twitter, show them the hashtags you use. If you don't know which ones to use check out this huge list and do some searches. A good one to tell everyone about is #edchat. (In full disclosure, I am biased towards edchat because I helped create it.) Hashtags can also lead to chats which help deepen Twitter conversations. So, if you don't know that much about hashtags now, get to know them. They are just little pharses that were created to help track conversations but have turned in to a powerful delivery system of information, resources, and more for educators.
Twitter HashTags for Teachers
Educators Guide to Twitter
TweetDeck
Atomic Learning Twitter Tutorials
20 Innovative Ways High Schools are Using Twitter
#realtimewwII
Before Twitter-"I wish I had known how to find people and build my PLN." Again, several folks said that to me. And people who have been on Twitter for a while still struggle with this. Finding good folks to follow can be a challenge. If you start out on your own, you really might not know a soul to follow. Thank goodness for sites like Twitter4Teachers. This is a great place where you can find other educators with similar interests to follow. When I was starting out, I stumbled upon this site. I was doing a Google search for "Twitter and Teachers" and thank goodness I found it. Otherwise I wouldn't know where to begin. But that is just one way. Twitter search is a great way to find people to follow. Plug in some key words and see who is tweeting. Another thing people may not understand is the idea of quality over quantity. You don't have to follow 1000 people to get a huge amount of meaning out of Twitter. Rather, choose people who provide value to you. Perhaps they tweet great resources. Or maybe they push your thinking. Remember, you can follow folks and they may or may not follow you back. That's ok. I see more and more that people are worried about followers. Oh I need only 2 more followers to get to 50. If Twitter is about seeing how many followers you can have, then maybe you are in it for the wrong reasons. Worry about the information you want to gain while here and forget about the other stuff.
Before Twitter-"I wish I had known about hashtags." This is the big one. More than 90% of the responses I got to my questions about what folks wish they had known said once they learned about hashtags, things changed for them. This is the sole reason I changed the way I do Twitter PD. I always start out with the idea of the hashtag. Using Twitter search can yield great results. But once folks learn about hashtags it completely changes how they use Twitter to find information. Hashtags can also help in finding good, high-quality people to follow. If you are talking to people about Twitter, show them the hashtags you use. If you don't know which ones to use check out this huge list and do some searches. A good one to tell everyone about is #edchat. (In full disclosure, I am biased towards edchat because I helped create it.) Hashtags can also lead to chats which help deepen Twitter conversations. So, if you don't know that much about hashtags now, get to know them. They are just little pharses that were created to help track conversations but have turned in to a powerful delivery system of information, resources, and more for educators.